Posted by Tisha Tolar on June 10, 2010
If work just fell from the sky, the world would be a lot richer. I know I sure would be! But it doesn’t happen that way. Work must be sought out. Work must be asked for. Work must be pursued all of the time. Otherwise, work just doesn’t happen.
Finding Work Is a Priority
No matter what industry, niche, or freelance situation you are looking to work, you need to find work. You need the money. If you have a retail-type job idea, you have to find places to sell your merchandise. If you provide a service, you have to let people know what you can do. This must happen all the time. As a freelance writer, I’ll admit this is not always my strongest skill. Often in the past, we have sought out work, snagged the job, and then pointed all of our focus on the task at hand. Only when we started running out of work did we think to start marketing ourselves again. This will not fly if you want to continue running a stable business. You always need work in the pipeline and you always need to be looking for work.
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Posted by Tisha Tolar on June 8, 2010
Going solo does not have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. In fact, it makes much more sense to test your ideas in a part time basis rather than jump right in, giving up everything you have. If you have been considering a freelance position, working for yourself at home you should also consider doing the start-up work in increments. Did you know that some of the most successful business started out as a part-time side job?
Easing Into It
Working full time for someone else while trying to get your own business off the ground is not the easiest of tasks. After a day of working then coming home to a family and a list of business chores to do, it can seem next to impossible you’d have the concentration let alone the fortitude to keep up with a new business. However, take heed of your reaction to the full plate you have. It is likely once you have a full-time business up and running, you may be working just as hard anyway. If you can’t hack it, working for yourself may not be for you.
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Posted by Tisha Tolar on June 7, 2010
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Posted by Tisha Tolar on May 26, 2010
We’ve covered mom guilt and I-should-be-working guilt. There is another guilt left that can be a problem depending on your specific financial situation. This kind of guilt occurs when you have worked hard all week only to find out you didn’t make any money. Most start up businesses can take anywhere from 6-12 months to turn a profit. If you have gone into the business with a solid business plan, you are prepared to deal with any financial stressors. If you haven’t started the business as prepared as you think, you may be surprised when your profits are not rising as rapidly as you thought – or hoped.
Making no money or even not enough money to sustain the family can be devastating if your business solely relies on your income. If you are a two income household, it may not be as harsh when no money comes in for a week or even a month. Feeling guilty about it all isn’t going to help the situation. But there are things you can do to assuage your guilt and help you move forward.
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Posted by Tisha Tolar on May 24, 2010
Previously we posted about feeling mom guilt and how to work through it. On the opposite spectrum is another kind of guilt – the ‘I-should-be-working guilt’. As a mom we are consumed each day with family life. Kids young and older still need their moms to make it through the day. Sometimes these demands come all day long, leaving you little time to work on the business side of things.
In the beginning of the start up phase, you can easily excuse your need to work constantly to get the business off the ground. But as time goes on, it can get harder to fight the balance between work and family. The key to remember is that FAMILY is the PRIORITY but work is important too. Finding the balance is difficult but not totally impossible provided you are able to put forth the effort to get both jobs done and done right. Because the business is yours, you are likely excited to go to work everyday and see results of your efforts. It can become very frustrating to tend to the family when you know your work to-do list is growing. When you work outside of the home for someone else, it’s probably easier to leave work at the office when you come home. When you work at home, you are always in the office.
Here are some tips for conquering the should-be-working guilt you will no doubt experience as a work-at-home mom:
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Posted by Tisha Tolar on May 10, 2010
As moms, there probably is nothing more draining, sad, and unavoidable than ‘Mom Guilt’. Mom guilt can come on strong and without warning, making your judgements seem askew. Regardless if your children are young or old, the thought that they need you and you are not there is a killer.
I can tell you now – prepare for mom guilt daily when you are running your own business from home. It will get you every time.
Mom guilt happens even when I am sitting right next to the kid while working. She is right there but I can not focus my attention on her totally if I want to get things done. I say a lot of distracted ‘uh-huhs’ and a give in to a lot of requests just so I can concentrate on my work. There have been days when mom guilt was so consuming I just shut down the computer and started to play board games whether the kid wanted to or not. I felt like I needed to do something with her every minute, especially when she was younger. Things have improved slightly as she has gotten older. (Plus her television attention span has increased – shame shame) I can now tell her I have to work and she gives me some room but there are still days when the ‘mom, mom, mom, mom’ tries my patience royally.
So how do I help fight back the mom guilt and help the kid to understand a little bit more?
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Posted by Tisha Tolar on May 8, 2010
Let me first start by saying that since my work-at-home business is writing – a thinking job – I may me a bit more biased about how much ‘fun’ working at home is sometimes. When I have full days to get the job done, my brain isn’t always on the same page as the rest of me. It seems my greatest moments of inspiration come when everyone is home, talking loudly, banging dinner dishes, asking 1000 questions. This is the time when work at home loses it’s appeal and I dream of nothing more than reporting to an office cubicle where no one can bug me, a place where someone else takes care of everything.
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Posted by Tisha Tolar on May 6, 2010
Being an entrepreneur that chases their dream and makes concrete their vision is like nothing else in this world – if you have right mentality. Entrepreneurship takes a certain kind of person. You have to be willing to be flexible, confident, aggressive, social, hard-working, able to handle rejection, revel in the thrill of victory, and… as the great Kenny Rogers says…know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. As a ‘momtrepreneur’ it can seem like your responsibilities are doubled and it becomes even harder sometimes to play a dual role.
It’s been mentioned here before that when you start out, it is highly recommended you work on creating a business plan outline so you’ll know what will be involved in creating a successful venture. Going through the process of making the plan often clues people in as to what to expect, what is necessary, and how much work there is to be done. In some cases, people will realize from the get-go that they are not meant to run a business like the orginally thought. In fact, just the simple reality of doing the plan often causes people to bail out before getting started when they realize it is too hard to do even the plan.
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Posted by Tisha Tolar on May 4, 2010
For some people, it is hard to believe you have a real job that earns a real income. You wake up in the morning, turn on the coffee, and start to work in your pj’s. Sure you can be comfortable at least some of the time while working from home but sometimes getting others to understand that working for yourself is in fact a real job – actually a career – can be another thing entirely.
If I had a quarter for every time I heard ‘Well, you’re home all day why can’t you ______________? (volunteer, babysit the neighbor kids, pick up the groceries, pick up the kids, run to the bank, do the laundry, coach baseball, talk for hours on the phone, make breakfast/lunch/dinner, take the car for an oil change, run the kids to the dentist, pick up the Girl Scout cookies, make signs for the community event………………….I’d be so rich, I’d never have to write again.
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Posted by Tisha Tolar on April 30, 2010
We entrepreneurs are often misunderstood because it takes a certain kind of person to fly solo. Finding support may not always be easy, especially when you are a mom, wife, sister, daughter, scout leader, soccer mom, taxi driver, cook, etc… When family and friends begin to see how much time it takes for you to start up and run a successful business, there may be a lot of resentment, dount, and other emotions running wild.
As a mom especially guilt may reign supreme. Guilt you are not giving your all or that because of the business you are failing a supermom, superwife, or superfriend. Sure, most women feel this way even when working for someone else but the feelings can be magnified when working on your own goals from your home. It is essential you start putting a support system in place from the start. In the process, you may find that you will begin phasing out certain relationships in your life. This is not to say that one day you will make a list and start crossing names off of it. Rather, over time, you will begin to drift away from those not embracing your vision.
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When To Do It Series: Work Doesn’t Just Fall Into Your Lap
